


Come Away With Me

by ellacj



Category: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, High School, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-23 16:28:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21084356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellacj/pseuds/ellacj
Summary: Despite the constant competition, the barbs, the taunting, no one has ever understood Rebecca like Audra Levine.





	Come Away With Me

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by the song "Come Away With Me" by Norah Jones
> 
> first time writing for crazy ex so be gentle with me :'))

Despite the constant competition, the barbs, the taunting, no one has ever understood Rebecca like Audra Levine. No matter how their mothers pit them against each other, they’ve always managed to wriggle their way out from under Naomi and Marilyn’s thumbs and back together again.

The night of graduation, freshly eighteen, Rebecca finds herself in the passenger seat of Audra’s car. “Where are we going?” she asks for the thirtieth time. She should have stopped asking by now; she knows Audra isn’t going to give her an answer. But she asks again anyway.

“Away,” Audra says. Her jaw is set and her knuckles are white around the steering wheel of her brand new Jeep. She doesn’t look over at Rebecca. “We need to go away.”

“Why?”

“Quit asking questions, Bunch.” Audra presses her foot even harder on the gas, and the Jeep growls beneath it. “Don’t you want to get away from Naomi? From Harvard? We need to go somewhere, just us, and start over.”

Rebecca looks down at her lap. She’s still wearing her graduation robe. Of course she’s fantasized about running away. What Jewish daughter hasn’t? But this is never what she pictured. “Audra, what happened?”

“Nothing,” Audra snaps.

Rebecca stops asking questions after that. The sky turns orange and pink and Audra keeps driving and her eyes are wide and wild and she won’t let Rebecca turn the radio on. They run out Audra’s entire tank and pull off at a gas station some 200 miles from home. While Audra fills up, Rebecca pulls the highway map out of the glove box and tries to figure out where they are.

She still hasn’t found them by the time Audra gets back in. Audra doesn’t start the car. “Mom bought a house for David and me,” she says.

“Wait, seriously?”

“She wants us to have a future together or something.” Audra grabs Rebecca’s hand and squeezes it tight. “Couldn’t we have a future together?”

Rebecca thinks back to all the moments they’ve spent together in their bedrooms with the lights off, lips pressed together, inexperienced hands fumbling to find a place to land in the dark. All the secrets they’ve told and never uttered again. The piercing looks and biting remarks thrown around in the hallway, the resentment turned into something much… more. “I… I don’t know,” she murmurs. “I’ve never thought about it.”

Audra squeezes her hand even tighter somehow. “Why not? I think about it all the time – we could just disappear, leave Scarsdale and our crazy moms and stupid boyfriends and just _live_.” She’s talking fast now, and her eyes are flicking all around Rebecca’s face, searching for some measure of the same excitement for their future.

“Audra, I…” Rebecca sighs. She pulls her hand away and folds both of hers together in her lap. She knows she can’t leave her mother behind. Yes, she’s the worst, but it would kill her to wonder where Rebecca had gone. “We should go back.”

“What are you talking about? Bunch, this is our chance.”

“It’s dark. Our moms are probably freaking out. Let’s just go home, please?”

There’s a long, long, _long_ silence. Audra starts the car. Her jaw is set and Rebecca can see the steely glint of her eyes even in the dim gas station lighting. “Fine,” Audra says. “But don’t expect me to call you when you go to fucking Harvard.”

“Audra-”

“Don’t distract me. I’m driving.”

Rebecca stares at her lap as Audra accelerates until her Jeep sounds like a motorcycle. Again, they don’t speak the entire drive home, and Audra smacks Rebecca’s hand when she tries to put in a cassette. It’s dark outside, the silhouettes of trees and buildings reflecting the moonlight as they fly by, twinkling stars just barely beginning to be visible against a black velvet sky.

She glances over at Audra. No, they don’t have a future together, she’s smart enough to know that. But their present together has been good enough. If she’s being honest, it’s probably the best relationship either of them will ever have. They always knew it would end here, at graduation. Maybe it’s better this way.

When Audra drops her off without a word, Rebecca’s mother throws a huge fit, of course. Rebecca doesn’t hear any of it. She watches through the window as Audra, illuminated by the porch light, sheds just a few tears before pulling out of the driveway and speeding off. Rebecca wipes at her own eyes. No, she’s not hearing Naomi. She’s thinking about Audra, with her boyfriend and her house and her Yale acceptance letter, and wondering if she’ll ever see her again.


End file.
